New System

[mirabile]

Hi all

I am in the process of buying a new system and would like some feedback on what I am proposing to get which is:

Apple G5 2.5GHz Quad
Motu 828 Mk II
4 Gigs RAM
2 x 400Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM Serial hard Drive 8Mb Cache internal Hard Drives
1 x 500Gb Glyph GT050Q 500Gb Firewire Hard Drive
Altiverb V5
Logic 7.1

Running VSL Pro Edition EXS24

Will update to VSL VI extended edition around July 06

Thanks for any comments

Regards

Mirabile

[PaulR]

All of that looks good - however - I would check out Apogee as opposed to Motu if I were you.

[mirabile]

PaulR

Thanks for the feedback. Why apogee instead of motu? Is apogee a lot more expensive than motu 828.

Regards

Mirabile

[PaulR]

@mirabile said:

PaulR

Thanks for the feedback. Why apogee instead of motu? Is apogee a lot more expensive than motu 828.

Regards

Mirabile

The way I see it at the moment with Macs, may seem a bit simplistic. But, first of all - I am in a similar situation using a Mac 2.0 dual with 4 gigs of ram, 2 x 250 HD's, Motu 828 MkII - and Logic 6.4.
Like you, I want to get a Quad too - or thought I did, until Mac decided to announce Mac Intels.

I don't know if you're planning to run Logic on the Quad or another system like Nuendo or DP etc. If you're looking at Logic, currently now 7.2, I would definitely wait and look at the Mac Intels.

Motu are really slow and disappointing in their attitude to driver updates. Apogee are sort of hand in hand with Mac now and their equipment is really high quality. Why skimp for a couple of hundred quid?

www.apogeedigital.com/products/ensemble.php

Edit: Duh! I see you are looking at Logic 7.1. OK - I would wait a while on the Intels and do a bit of research on the Apple forums.

[Dom]

Spending the extra £1000-1500 more for the Apogee is only worth if you are doing a lot of recording of analogue sources. If it's mainly bouncing of virtual instruments "in the box" then the Motu will do fine. The Apogee would only give you slightly clearer monitoring (which can be a good thing), but not give you a better sound.

Also I've done loads of analogue stuff with 2 old Motu 828 Mk1s and they were fine.

Dom

[Nick Batzdorf]

The Apogee looks like an excellent product, and I'm looking forward to trying it. But I'd be very leery of raving about any product sight unseen (hearing unheard) just because of the company's name! Apogee has certainly earned the cachet they enjoy, but that doesn't mean they aren't capable of building to a price.

Also, I'd put at least 4.5GB of RAM in there for now, being prepared to go up if it turns out that Vienna Instruments can access more (as Golem is suggesting - at least I think he is - in another thread). In other words, use as few 256 and 512MB RAMs as possible so you don't have waste them if you go up to 1GB sticks.

[hetoreyn]

Well I can Vouch for the Quad 2.5 system. It's been totally brilliant for running all my VSL stuff with plenty of overhead left for Reverb and other such things.

Though personally I don't know this appogee thing but MOTU stuff has always worked beautifully with logic and apple.

[PaulR]

All the above is quite true and good advice.

A couple of issues though. The Quads and Logic. AFAIK, the Quads cannot use all four processors with Logic currently. The new Logic 7.2 version as I understand it, does not address this currently. Therefore, one of the questions that crops up that may or may not be relevant is - will Apple bother to upgrade Logic for Quads and previous models when the Mac Power Intels arrive later in the year?

You can get plenty of headroom for most anything using a Dual 2.0 at the moment. The extra power of the Quads is obvious, but is not really being utilized by Logic.

[mirabile]

Dear All

Thanks for the feedback, it has been most useful in deciding which way to proceed.

Regards

Mirabile